Recently, I attended a virtual scientific conference.
I usually participate in these kinds of educational and insightful conferences when time permits.
This is also one of my core duties and responsibilities because I’m a scientist and work on science and make a living on it.
One of the speakers in the conference, a business management guru, said, “never ever talk about politics, religion, and sex in business networking session.”
Mark Twain, who also advised, “Never discuss politics or religion in polite company.” Biographer Ron Chernow gives us the full, fascinating, and complex life of Mark Twain in a biography who is long celebrated as the father of American literature.
I grew up in a society where people blindly follow politics and talk about it as a pastime.
I have seen a conflict between brothers, between sisters, between aunts, and uncles within a close family circle due to the favor and disfavor of their political affiliation.
I remember one particular incident regarding this between two brothers which is still fresh in my memory.
“When you are addicted to something your ego always bolsters, any kind of addiction suffocates the human judgement.”
Both brothers were claiming that each of their political parties is the best one out of many.
Both brothers were claiming that their political leaders are the best.
Their dad was an ordinary countryman, not highly educated but a literate, occasionally used to ask ‘why do political parties make all of us fight?’
He used to reflect and think, ‘is politics always bitter and divided?’
“What kind of lacking I had to raise my sons?” I frequently heard this whisper from his mouth.
Dad was unaware how politics enters into our life and ruins the profession of our living if we are not careful about it.
I was also quiet and just observing the argumentative political fight between two brothers with no verbal expression.
Elder brother was saying, “my political party liberated more people than any other political party so it deserves to form the government.”
The younger brother was saying, “my political party has made the most progress and development in the country than any other party in the history of government. My political party protected the country during many difficult junctures of foreign interventions so it deserves to make the government.”
It’s worthless for me to spend time on who is wrong and who is right and this is not my intention here because both brothers were not politicians by profession.
They didn’t make a living doing politics because the elder brother was a high school teacher and younger brother was an accountant in a private firm.
I didn’t say anything to either brother during this heated political debate.
I simply said, “each of you are saying I am right because each of you has a huge ego; ego of severe political addiction.”
“You are not saying I am right, your ego is saying I am right.”
“When you are addicted to something your ego always bolsters,” I added.
“You are not saying your brother is wrong, your ego is saying your brother is wrong because addiction suffocates the human judgement.
I just added to the elder brother, “Hey brother, you’ve shared many things with your younger brother, you shared the same house and same parents with him, if you can’t align your political thoughts with him in a family, then how would you align so many other thoughts in your professional life?”
He didn’t respond.
Ryan Holiday, the author of ‘Ego is the Enemy‘ talks about how ego can be an obstacle to progress. This suggests that a strong ego inside us often makes us difficult to accept when we might be wrong.
“If we start to consume every piece of information regarding politics, religion, and sex, we surely become addicted and this excess consumption is garbage for ordinary people, we don’t need it.”
Surprisingly, during the middle of this intense argumentative and corrosive political fight, the elder brother’s daughter ran over and said to her dad, “dad, why don’t you say ‘sorry’ to uncle?”
Her dad paused, looked at his daughter and became speechless.
His daughter was just 14 years old.
The whole verbal political fight turned into silence.
His daughter was still insisting to her dad to say ‘sorry’ to her uncle.
Eventually, her dad said ‘sorry’ to his younger brother and both daughter and her dad left the scene.
When the word “sorry” comes out from our mouth in any situation, amazing things happen.
Serotonin, a neurotransmitter and hormone, produces in our body and stabilizes our mood.
It also helps to change our behavior to make us feel good or at least comfortable.
Most importantly, we win over our ego when we say ‘sorry’.
Our relationship whatever it is, in this case brotherhood, wins over ego.
The word ‘sorry’ teaches us that family relationships are way more powerful than a conflict due to mere political ideology.
Strictly speaking; politics, religion, and sex are the most sensitive and divisive part of people’s lives but they shouldn’t disrupt our family values and relationship.
We all learn to create human values from family relationship and it also help to promote and uplift one another in the society.
Remember, the best time to make our family relationship stronger is actually before we need it for us.
We have to create value and necessity in an existing relationship rather than just use whatever is there.
We have to always nurture the value of brotherhood and sisterhood by thinking of small actions that you were involved in the family when you were young. I found it helpful to push the edges of the family relationship further.
There are many things in life that we have to prioritize but there are very few things which we can not prioritize, our relationship with family and our profession is one of them. We have to move both at same time.
Think of this, your son is 5 years old and you are in medical school. You can’t prioritize your medical school over your son and say once I finish medical school I would start to give more time to my son.
Nobody can do this, if you do this you will regret your whole life even after having your medical degree.
Whatever happens in our life, our quality relationship with our family should move in parallel at the same time. Dolly Parton, an American singer and businesswoman says “Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.”
Grudges, anger, and divisive arguments in the family are for those who are very shortsighted and can’t control their emotional feelings.
People who forgive and say ‘sorry’ are generally farsighted and control their emotions.
One neighbor requested both brothers who were fighting over the choice of political parties to go home and change the question to “is any political party wrong instead of saying my political party is right?” “Ask yourself, does any political party have a wrong manifesto?”
In reality, no political parties are bad, each one has only a different path to reach the best society.
Similarly, no religions are bad, they are only the different forms of expression of human beliefs.
Dalai lama, an author of ‘Beyond Religion‘ and Nobel laureate said, “Your well being, success, and humankind is reflected in the religion you are practicing right now. Don’t change your religion.”
In the similar way, we all know what sex is, how it works, and why we need it.
Do we really need to go deeper in it?
I don’t think so.
Each of these categories; politics, religion, and sex has extreme ends that might harm us if we are not careful. We don’t have to go there, we absolutely don’t need extremes if we don’t make a living on these things.
If we make a living on these things means we do research on these things then it would be a different scenario, for example, professional politicians, religious leaders, or adult movie makers.
One thing is clear that the beauty of politics, religion, and sex is always in the middle for those of us who don’t make a living on these things.
If we start to consume every piece of information regarding politics, religion, and sex, we surely become addicted and its very difficult to break.
Trust me, this excess consumption is garbage for ordinary people, we don’t need it.
“If we politicize any workplace where ordinary people work for a living then it is highly likely that we are addicted to politics.”
After coming to the USA for my higher studies, I experienced and saw some of the very unusual things.
On presidential election day in the USA, the entire country works and remains active on its business, it’s not a holiday. It shocked me initially.
I went to the grocery stores, and people were working as usual.
I visited public and private offices, people were working as usual, public transportation was as usual.
School and colleges remain open as usual. Nobody talks about the ongoing election. If you bring that subject up, people smile and say “let’s see who will win.”
Only during election night, we will see how people are divided into two parties almost equally half as democrats and republicans.
Donald Trump, the president, wanted the supreme court to overturn many states’ election results when he lost election in the past so that he could stay as a president in white house for 4 more years.
This is the country where the supreme court denied the petition filed by the president Donald Trump to overturn the state election result in the past with one line ruling.
“The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.”
Amazingly, the general public has no interest in the inside business of the supreme court.
There are no phones, no cameras, and no journalists allowed in the supreme court.
One line final decision by the judge.
This was also a big surprise for me to know how the judicial system works in the USA.
I’m bringing these cases here just to realize the perception of ordinary people with various other professions towards politics and the judicial system.
How does it happen in the USA? I have no clue, I’m still studying this.
This may be one of the reasons that american economy is still so vibrant that none of the organizations or businesses are politicized.
My understanding coming from Nepal is this, Nepal is transitioning from least developed country to a developing nation now: if we politicize any workplace where ordinary people work for a living then it is highly likely that we are addicted to politics.
And same applies to religion and sex.
“The world we are living in right now is made by those who rephrased and reordered the existence then, who ventured many unknowns, and who welcomed many uncomfortable questions.”
One way to get rid of addiction from politics, religion and sex is twist a question away from “I and my.”
Once we practice this we generally get completely different answers because our ego doesn’t control our thinking.
If we rephrase the same question removing ‘I and my’, we get a distant view of life, even though the motive of the question still remains the same.
With this approach, in many cases we solve very difficult problems, especially political and religious problems, there are many examples of it.
Harriet Lerner, PhD, the author of ‘The Dance of Anger‘ says “When we are angry or in disagreement with someone, we have to change the question and ask ourselves a different version of the same question.”
Many times, problems are not always solved by just asking the correct question to others or ourselves because there is no question which is wrong.
Problems are generally solved by rephrasing the same question so that we can see our blind spots.
Once we rephrase the same question, different parts of the brain trigger and our blind spots get clear.
When we argue or when we confront in the same question, we lose our control, this is normal and natural.
In life how we react to what happens determines who we are and where we going.
By the time we react the question, we already reorganize our thoughts, we rethink our expressions more than what we initially had.
Once we take a question or answer away from us personally, we become more clear and flexible.
Why does Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla, think such a humongous and unpredictable task?
Why does Musk think 200 hundred years from now?
Elon Musk thinks of colonizing mars for human settlement, because he is taking both questions and answers far away from him personally, because 200 years from now, he won’t be alive. We all won’t be alive. Legacy also comes into play when we go far personally from our question and answers. I strongly recommend to read Elon Musk biography by Walter Isaacson.
The truth is, the world we are living in right now is made by those who rephrased and reordered the existence then, who ventured many unknown questions, and who welcomed many uncomfortable questions in their own new ways.
“We can’t beat human in the long haul unless we know how to accommodate other humans in our mission.”
When we rephrase and reorder things and thinkings, creation appears.
Rearrange the furnitures in your house, your mind says, wow, it’s gorgeous because your mind sees the new pattern.
Renew, rephrase, refresh, reshuffle, reselect, reorganize, redecorate; all they have novel things in common.
They change the pattern and acceleration of our brain.
They help to see things from different angles.
The Pareto principle ‘The 80/20 Principle‘ by Richard Koch also indicates the same: only 20 percent of anything produces more value, 20 percent comes from re-selection and re-organization.
20 percent of words of any language are mostly used in any conversation.
20 percent of stuff in our home we use again and again.
20 percent of products of any company sell over and over.
20 percent of spices the chef uses again and again to produce amazing dishes.
20 percent of our questions have the best answers.
The remaining 80 percent of all of the above are mundane and can not produce valuable outcomes.
Remember, when we say “I and my,” it’s mundane, it doesn’t produce the most valuable 20 percent result so that we have to rephrase our question.
I always think of it this way. Sugar is an essential ingredient in our life.
We need it to survive. But if we over eat it then it converts into more fats and that is the main culprit of our many health problems in modern life including cancer.
Overeating of anything is bad, including sugar and fat.
Overeating is against the principle of conscious choice.
Don’t over eat anything in life. Don’t over consume politics, religion, and sex as a common professional.
Rethink and rephrase the same old question so that we don’t over consume toxicity.
Start the day by using one spoon of sugar instead of two spoons in our morning tea or coffee.
Consume coffee or tea only two times in a day instead of four times.
Consume the news only once in a day rather than to follow every piece of news during the day. This is the real practice of ‘The 80/20 principle‘, the Pareto principle.
There is one reason why we hesitate to rephrase and reselect because we are social animals.
We become skeptical of unknown questions and uncomfortable with change.
We want to stay with the same old question, the status quo bias.
We are hesitant to challenge anything new.
This is our nature, pure human nature and human mind.
We feel happy and comfortable living in a small echo chamber: the same old friends, the same place, the same road to hang out, the same food in a restaurant, and the same kind of entertainment shows on TV everyday.
We are afraid of change.
If we have any new information coming in our mind, we have to trust it but we always have to verify it.
Verification is the rephrasing and rethinking of the same old with new eyes.
We all will die sometime in the future, sad but true, and the desire to make us useful, important, and famous all the time is just human emotion.
That’s the reason we always say, ‘I and my.’
Accept this fact that we have to rephrase our saying without ‘I and my’ even if we are right.
When we start to develop this behavior we make a habit of saying “sorry” to the people.
If we say ‘sorry’, it is an acceptance that I’m including you in my mission, you are equally important like me, and I listen you as you talk.
We can’t beat human in the long haul unless we know how to accommodate other humans in our mission.
“If we rephrase and reorder the same old question differently and avoid things which are not important in life, we bring focus in our life.”
There is another misconception in society that academically sound people are always right and they know more because we see them leading in many places. We see them on the stage, we see them all over the places trying to control others.
Academic degrees like PhD, MD, and MBA is useful only if they are using their expertise in the field where they make a living.
I’m sure you’ve also seen and worked with people who have these degrees but they are the most absurd and polarized in society.
I have personally seen and worked with them who have PhD, MD, and MBA but are the most argumentative, short tempered, arrogant, corrosive, and politically motivated.
I’m not saying all are bad, what I’m saying is, don’t follow these people blindly.
Just believe that our formal education never prepares us one hundred percent in the real world.
I believe and I have some credit, at least, to say this.
I’ve spent 5+ years in my PhD and 3+ years in my postdoctoral training.
We must have real world experience to be successful in the real world, academic degree could be the ladder for real world but not the panacea.
This is not only by me, this is also by many who are successful in the real world who don’t have PhD, MD, and MBA but are generous, collective, and logical.
Apply the principle of re-selection and choice for these people if they are influencing your lives directly or indirectly.
Real world education means starting a grocery store, traveling far from home without much money, driving a taxi to survive, and running marathon for the first time if you’ve never run before.
It also means studying your mind about what comes in the middle of your marathon run.
It is trusting our gut and intuition and applying the feeling of that marathon run that never comes by sitting on the couch at home.
John Paul DeJoria, an entrepreneur started his business career with a loan of just $700 with a high school degree. He now owns a business empire worth $3 billion dollars. John Paul DeJoria inspires all of us to stop imagining and start doing, his TedTalk ‘The Power of One‘ is worth watching.
If we are involved in real world education, it owns us and we are more likely to quit the different forms of addiction in our lives.
Our gut, our intuition, and our real world experience is more powerful than the advice of MBA and PhD inside the classroom.
Asking many questions in life is normal but tweaking the same old question over and over to get the new result is an action.
Real world education is nothing new, it is the application of tweaking of the same old question to see our lives with a new vision.
If we rephrase and reorder the same old question differently and avoid things which are not important in life, we bring focus in our life.
There are two types of real work we can do in this world depending on our mindset and personality.
We can either work as a CEO of our own company or we can work for a CEO’s company.
Don’t think as a CEO of a high tech company yet, if you drive your own taxi or if you own a local grocery store, then you are a CEO; if you are accountant or lawyer in a firm then you work for a CEO.
Both are equally important, choose what suits your mindset and personality.
We have to focus and move forward.
“Entrepreneurship is one of the tools to democratize over the old education system, it teaches us how to adapt to the fast changing environment and seek freedom.”
Similarly, we can also select to work in two sectors: public or private.
Both are equally important, also depending on our personality and mindset.
Be either a public servant or work in private firms; be kind, be generous and always make a habit of saying “sorry”.
I personally prefer the private sector because it teaches us entrepreneurship in life.
If we know entrepreneurship, we can live freely whatever we do and wherever we go.
The practice until now is, we spend the 1st half of our life time learning and the 2nd half in working based on 1st half’s learning; this isn’t going to work in the 21st century and after.
This concept of education has already stopped working because it is based on the 19th century education system dictated by the industrial revolution.
Entrepreneurship is one of the tools to democratize over the old education system. The important thing is that it teaches us how to adapt to the fast changing environment and seek freedom. More than this, it teaches us how, where, and when to say ‘sorry’ to other people.
Conclusion
Always remember, “sorry” doesn’t mean you are wrong, it only means you might not have rephrased, reordered, and reformatted your old question.
The best time to say ‘sorry’ is when you realize that your life and your experience is only a single dot in a sea of billion other dots across the globe.
If you realize the dot connection pattern at your core in your professional life and move with focus, you never get addicted in anything including politics, religion, and sex.
Yam Timsina, PhD, writes primarily on health basics, scientific progress, social upliftment, and value creation.
Disclaimer: “Please note that some links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission if you make a purchase through them, at no extra cost to you.”
